1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to reducing jitter in mixed-signal integrated circuit devices, for example in digital-to-analog converters (DACs). Such integrated circuit devices-include a mixture of digital circuitry and analog circuitry.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings shows parts of a conventional DAC of the so-called “current-steering” type. The DAC 1 is designed to convert an m-bit digital input word (D1-Dm) into a corresponding analog output signal.
The DAC 1 contains analog circuitry including a plurality (n) of identical current sources 21 to 2n, where n=2m−1. Each current source 2 passes a substantially constant current I. The analog circuitry further includes a plurality of differential switching circuits 41 to 4n corresponding respectively to the n current sources 21 to 2n. Each differential switching circuit 4 is connected to its corresponding current source 2 and switches the current I produced by the current source either to a first terminal, connected to a first connection line A of the converter, or a second terminal connected to a second connection line B of the converter.
Each differential switching circuit 4 receives one of a plurality of digital control signals T1 to Tn (called “thermometer-coded signals” for reasons explained hereinafter) and selects either its first terminal or its second terminal in accordance with the value of the signal concerned. A first output current IA of the DAC 1 is the sum of the respective currents delivered to the differential-switching-circuit first terminals, and a second output current IB of the DAC 1 is the sum of the respective currents delivered to the differential-switching-circuit second terminals.
The analog output signal is the voltage difference VA−VB between a voltage VA produced by sinking the first output current IA of the DAC 1 into a resistance R and a voltage VB produced by sinking the second output current IB of the converter into another resistance R.
In the FIG. 1 DAC the thermometer-coded signals T1 to Tn are derived from the binary input word D1-Dm by digital circuitry including a binary-thermometer decoder 6. The decoder 6 operates as follows.
When the binary input word D1-Dm has the lowest value the thermometer-coded signals T1-Tn are such that each of the differential switching circuits 41 to 4n selects its second terminal so that all of the current sources 21 to 2n are connected to the second connection line B. In this state, VA=0 and VB=nIR. The analog output signal VA−VB=−nIR.
As the binary input word D1-Dm increases progressively in value, the thermometer-coded signals T1 to Tn produced by the decoder 6 are such that more of the differential switching circuits select their respective first terminals (starting from the differential switching circuit 41) without any differential switching circuit that has already selected its first terminal switching back to its second terminal. When the binary input word D1-Dm has the value i, the first i differential switching circuits 41 to 4i select their respective first terminals, whereas the remaining n−i differential switching circuits 4i+1 to 4n select their respective second terminals. The analog output signal VA−VB is equal to (2i−n)IR.
FIG. 2 of the accompanying drawings shows an example of the thermometer-coded signals generated for a three-bit binary input word D1-D3 (i.e. in this example m=3). In this case, seven thermometer-coded signals T1 to T7 are required (n=2m−1=7).
As FIG. 2 shows, the thermometer-coded signals T1 to Tn generated by the binary-thermometer decoder 6 follow a so-called thermometer code in which it is known that when an rth-order signal Tr is activated (set to “1”), all of the lower-order signals T1 to Tr-1 will also be activated.
Thermometer coding is popular in DACs of the current-steering type because, as the binary input word increases, more current sources are switched to the first connection line A without any current source that is already switched to that line A being switched to the other line B. Accordingly, the input/output characteristic of the DAC is monotonic and the glitch impulse resulting from a change of 1 in the input word is small.
However, when it is desired to operate such a DAC at very high speeds (for example 100 MHz or more), it is found that glitches may occur at one or both of the first and second connection lines A and B, producing a momentary error in the DAC analog output signal VA−VB. These glitches in the analog output signal may be code-dependent and result in harmonic distortion or even non-harmonic spurs in the output spectrum. Some causes of these glitches are summarised as follows.
The digital circuitry (the binary-thermometer decoder 6 and other digital circuits) is required to switch very quickly and its gate count is quite high. Accordingly, the current consumption of the digital circuitry could be as much as 20 mA per 100 MHz at high operating speeds. This combination of fast switching and high current consumption inevitably introduces a high degree of noise into the power supply lines. Although it has previously been considered to separate the power supplies for the analog circuitry (e.g. the current sources 2i to 2n and differential switching circuits 41 to 4n in FIG. 1) from the power supplies for the digital circuitry, this measure alone is not found to be wholly satisfactory when the highest performance levels are required. In particular, noise arising from the operation of the binary-thermometer decoder 6 can lead to skew in the timing of the changes in the thermometer-coded signals T1 to Tn in response to different changes in the digital input word D1 to Dm. For example, it is estimated that the skew may be several hundreds of picoseconds. This amount of skew causes significant degradation of the performance of the DAC and, moreover, being data-dependent, the degradation is difficult to predict.
In order to reduce the skew problem mentioned above, it has been considered to provide a set of latch circuits, corresponding respectively to the thermometer-coded signals T1 to Tn, between the digital circuitry and the analog circuitry, which latches are activated by a common timing signal such that the outputs thereof change simultaneously. However, it is found that this measure alone is not wholly effective in removing skew from the thermometer-coded signals. It is found, for example, that data-dependent jitter still remains at the outputs of the latch circuits and that the worst-case jitter increases in approximate proportion to the number of thermometer-coded signals. Thus, with (say) 64 thermometer-coded signals the worst-case jitter may be as much as 20 picoseconds which, when high performance is demanded, is excessively large.
Some of the above problems have been addressed in the assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 6,320,257 corresponding to United Kingdom patent publication no. GB-A-2335097), the entire contents of which is incorporated herein by reference. In GB-A-2335097, a set of latches is provided between the digital and analog circuitry, each of the digital, latch and analog circuitry portions being provided with its own power supply terminals for connection to different off-chip power sources. GB-A-2335097 also discloses the use of a triple well construction and the use of shielding to reduce coupling between the power supplies of the different circuitry portions.
However, even when such techniques as described above are employed, it has been found by the present inventor that in the most demanding of applications, significant jitter still results from power supply variation caused by noise from various sources.